·then I’d suddenly
look up and wonder how many hours had passed, and panic that I’d been locked in
for the night!

These
are wonderful memories for me, but more importantly, they shine a light on

oquiet,

opatient,

origorous,

olife-affirming

oand nation-building endeavours.

Not
long ago I was reading the papers from the 50th anniversary
celebration of the Sophia Smith Collection at the Smith College, Massachusetts.[1]

I’ve
always wanted to visit Smith College, and I guess that’s largely because of how
much I have admired the writing and work of Australian-American author, Jill
Kerr-Conway, who was Smith’s first woman president.

I
quoted her only last week when I was at the University of Sydney to describe
how I felt about my time at the Women’s College:

…the places and people that give our lives an
aura of magic potential.[2]

And,
remarkably, in the same week, I met a group of Smith College academics who were
out here:

·for an
international women and sport conference,

·and a
meeting at the Women’s College!

There’s
a lot of wonderful serendipity in this role.

It’s
what I love most about it.

The
threads you can draw together to create whole new fabrics.

I
digress though.

Back
to Smith – in 1942, the College committed itself to the preservation of the
record of women’s lives and work.

There
were some pearls offered on the 50th birthday of the Sophia Smith
collection that I’d like to share with you here.

They
remind me of the universal bonds of respect and compassion among women across
generations and borders:

·how we cherish
one another’s achievements and what we have done to progress the lives of women
everywhere;

·our understanding
of the debilitating consequences of silencing women’s public and professional
lives

·and our capacity
to turn that around, constructively and triumphantly.

In
the 1930s when feminist historian, Mary Beard, led the effort to establish a
World Center for Women’s Archives, she displayed marvellous creative talents:-

·in cajoling
donors and sponsors,

·and excavating,

·documenting,

·identifying

·and cataloguing
women’s history.

She
conceived of the project not as antiquarian or purely curatorial but as:

·a political
venture,

·a meeting place
for women of many minds,

·the source of an
educational revolution,

·and the site from
which women’s public protests and social leadership might emanate.